


Flight

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: With their family life in a low patch, Loki decides to find out whether or not his feelings for his brother are requited, reasoning everything might as well be a mess at once. High school human au.





	Flight

  


Loki was lying on his back on the sitting room sofa. Apart from meals, he had been there since he woke up at eleven, and had done little more than twirl his bangs around his index finger. This meant that the hair there was now wound into a dull, limp spiral that would hang in front of his right eye when he stood up and would look at odds with the glossy curls that covered the rest of his head. He knew this from having done more or less the same thing for the last nine days. That he was doing it in the living room today rather than in his bedroom was a test of the waters. So far, it had been a successful one. There had been no shouting. No request to participate. No anger or blame. No awkward conversations or unconvincing reassurances. The day had passed much as the last nine had: in a quiet safety that Loki was still afraid to trust. Things that seemed too good to be true so often were.

 

Frigga bustled through the house, packing up everything that was Odin’s. Thor got things down from high shelves and carried the boxes out to the U-Haul van that was parked in front of the house, then played a game like Tetris to make it all fit without shifting. Loki listened to the rip of the roll of tape unwinding and the dry drag of cardboard under his mother’s fingertips as she smoothed the cello over the box flaps to seal it shut. Then there was the thud of books landing in the bottom of another box. More thuds. The rip of tape again. Thor’s shoes tapping up the front steps and across the porch floorboards. No click of the door because it was propped open, the year young enough that the mosquitoes were still asleep.

 

Frigga’s footsteps came out into the hall from the den and then slowed as she met up with Thor.

“Pizza okay for dinner?” she asked.

When Loki turned his head, Thor was nodding and Frigga was looking into the room, waiting for his answer.  
“Yeah,” Loki said.

“Delivery, or can I pick it up?” Thor asked, with words that came fast and quiet as he tried and failed to conceal his enthusiasm.

“You can pick it up if you’d like to,” she said, and Loki could hear his mother smiling though she had already turned back toward the office to resume her packing.

 

The driving was new--or the driving without an adult anyway. Thor had turned sixteen on the first day of January and had snatched up his license as quickly as he could. Since then he hadn’t missed a chance to practice. Three months of Thor behind the wheel on the way to and from school and on the hundreds of largely unnecessary errands the brothers now ran together.

“You wanna come and call in the order when we get close?” Thor asked.

Loki blinked once and nodded, then got up to try to fix his hair. When that proved hopeless, he tucked the ruined strand behind his ear and stuck it in place with a bobby pin.

 

Outside, the birds were coming back in waves. The trees and hedges rang with their talk. Loki couldn’t speak a word of it, though some mornings when it came in through his bedroom window their thoughts seemed to perch on the tip of his tongue. Now, with his mind on his belly, he wondered if it was one ceaseless complaint the birds were singing, furious at having come so far to find the cupboards bare. The insects weren’t out yet. The grass was still tipped with pale brown above ground that hadn’t thawed. Only a few shriveled berries still clung to the trees, looking more like the bog-tanned bodies of Irish dead than like anything to eat--the birds ate them anyway. He Googled their winter diet on his phone, raised his eyebrows, and looked up at his brother.

“Can we stop at Jack’s?” Loki asked.

“Sure,” Thor shrugged, and they ducked sideways into the seats of his car.

 

Thor kept his eyes on the road, which left Loki free to choose the music they listened to--and free to let his eyes linger on his brother unobserved.

 

Thor had his window down for the drive. His hair was blown sideways in wild, snapping arcs that brushed the scent of him onto the breeze for Loki to breathe in. Apple shampoo and the remnants of autumn borne on air that had passed between trees. From where Loki sat, the strands seemed to be reaching for him--or dancing to _Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want_ better than a body ever could.

 

Thor wasn’t scowling or frowning. There had been nothing begrudging in his voice when he had invited Loki along. He simply looked tired. And slightly thin, but that had become the new normal with Thor. Everything he ate was converted into height before it had a chance to fill in his cheeks. Twelve hours a night wouldn’t have been enough sleep, and most often he only managed six or seven.

 

Loki called to order their pizza as they pulled into the driveway at Jack’s. Thor’s hair kept dancing after the music died with the engine, floating and fluttering around him in the wind that swept across the parking lot. Loki watched the other shoppers watching his brother as they picked their way through the aisles. It was cooler today, so Thor was wearing a sweater. Light grey chunky cotton, loosely knitted. It had a thick, wide turtle neck, fitted sleeves that were pushed up to his elbows, and sides that hung loose and spun around his waist as he walked. The hem ended below his butt, and the fabric draped over his behind  in a way that Loki found charming. Loki could follow the swelling of Thor’s calves with every step he took as the muscles shifted inside his dark grey leggings. The sweater was an old favorite, but the leg-wear was new. Normally Thor wore the skinniest of skinny jeans. A few days ago he went out and got two week’s worth of leggings in white, black, and shades of grey. Loki’s refusal to classify them as pants was not indicative of disapproval; they were currently in the company of lace and see-through silk on Loki’s mental list of fashion’s greatest hits.

“Should we get the ‘no mess’ ones?” Thor asked, stopping in front of the stacked sacks of hulled sunflower seeds and turning back to look at his brother.

“Might as well,” Loki nodded, and Thor heaved a bag into their cart.

“Millet and thistle?”

“Yeah.”

Loki caught the occasional smirk or rumpled forehead on a stranger’s face as they heard the low voice coming out from behind his brother’s long hair, but no one bothered them.

 

They paid and loaded sixty pounds of birdseed into the trunk, then headed further up the road for their pizza. Loki went in to wait at the counter with his brother, both to open doors and to observe the behavior of strangers. Voices drifted out from the kitchen in the back, but up front there was only a young woman with pale blue hair left to run the register and hand them their order. Thor complimented her dye job and asked how she’d done it.

“Food coloring--after the bleach,” she replied. “I change my mind a lot and it washes out fast. It’s best to have towels and pillowcases you don’t care about though.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Thor smiled. “Looks awesome.”

 

The sun was getting low and the air, already crisp, was going cold and sharp with the wind and darkness. Thor rolled up his window and turned on the heat so that their dinner would stay warm on the drive home. Two weeks ago the days had seemed like June, but now it felt like late autumn and the warmth of the pizza was welcome on Loki’s lap. Spring was young, still finding its feet. At night it would lie down and leave the walking to winter.

 

Now Loki was debating again. Initially, he had thought it might be best to tell Thor on the first day of summer vacation (he had narrowed it down to _telling_ Thor, since, with the spoken word there would be some hope for deniability-- _His word against mine. That’s absurd. That’s not funny. Your ego is so out of control_ and so on--if it all went south. Argument would be an option. Whereas if Loki sent a text, it could be saved and forwarded. Likewise an email or a letter). If the news was unwelcome, they would have the space and privacy of summer vacation in which to smooth things over; if the news was welcome, they would have the summer to celebrate.

 

But summer had always been what they looked forward to all year. The thought of losing one weighed on Loki. If he said nothing, the summer would be wonderful. Not ideal, perhaps, but near enough. He supposed he had no business expecting dreams from reality anyway, unless they were nightmares--he’d learned that much from watching the news. Kept secret, his hope could remain blissfully, obliviously afloat. His wants could live within the mercifully unknown realm of the possible. Whereas, if he did say something, he might lose more than just the potential: he could cost himself everything he definitely had, which had recently been whittled down to his mother and brother. Odin had become an unknown. It made Loki itch. He didn’t like to have his father’s love and his brother’s love occupying the same grey state. Whatever they were, they were not the same thing. The former was a frightening mess. The latter… if nothing else, it was of Thor, and was therefore preferable to any and everything.

 

Loki wished he’d asked Thor how he had known he’d wanted to buy bird seed. Loki hadn’t mentioned it. They’d never gone out to buy it on their own before. They had no pets, so Loki supposed it was an easy conclusion to come to when he asked to go to a pet supply store. Still, it felt like something else.

 

Again, he found himself wondering just how far that _something else_ went. How much Thor already knew. What Thor already was. And, if Thor knew the whole of Loki’s heart and hadn’t mentioned it or done anything about it, did that mean he didn’t care? That was as good as death to Loki’s mind. Thor not being bothered one way or the other was worse than hate. Indifference would put him at an unreachable distance.

 

But Loki had maintained a poker face for the past two years. It was conceivable that Thor had done the same. The thought woke Loki’s hope from its state of suspended animation within the shell of the unplumbed _possible_. Now it clung to the edge of its nest and contemplated the leap.

 

Fly or fall. Only two options. If there was air, Loki could manage the former; if there was a void, the latter would manage itself. So, really, all Loki had to do was tip forward and leave it up to Thor. If there was a safer place than Thor’s keeping to stow one’s existence, Loki couldn’t think of it. Ascension or annihilation. Yes or no. There was a wholeness to those things. The safety Loki had been lingering in now looked akin to indifference. Neither here nor there. It was a nothingness that lacked the benefit of oblivion. To know would be an attainment; to wonder was limbo, and limbo was for the dead.

 

But summer break was still over two months away.

 

Where the road curved around a pond, Thor stopped the car to let a pair of geese cross the road. Loki wondered whether the birds were here to stay or merely resting before continuing north. He looked up migration on his phone and learned that a bar-tailed godwit flew from Alaska to New Zealand, non-stop, over the course of nine days. Seven thousand one hundred and forty-five miles across the Pacific in one long leap. It made sense to Loki. It was best to pull off a bandage quickly. He applied that method to all sorts of things. He liked to do all his homework as soon as he got out of school and then enjoy his freedom fully afterward, with nothing hanging over his head. He always ate his least liked dish first and saved his favorite for last. Did chores first thing in the morning.

 

His family life was in a low patch at the moment. He reasoned it would be best to add insult to injury and let all the dust settle at once. Today was Saturday. Yesterday would have been better, but Thor recovered from things quickly--and Loki didn’t want to wait a whole week.

 

While Loki had settled on _tonight_ and _words_ , he had not settled on _where_ or on _which_ _words_. He tried to come up with answers during the rest of the ride home but had no luck. The car smelled of pizza and sunflower seeds and all he could think about was that the birds came back like clockwork, regardless of the weather and the availability of their favorite food. They were wired for it. Helpless to it. He wondered if the same could be said of himself; if he was bound by the arrangement of atoms within and without. Would a perfectly duplicated version of this universe unfold exactly as this one had? He didn’t see why not. It should have left him feeling helpless, like a reliable cog, predictable and pointless, devoid of free will and of purpose. Instead it was freeing, for if everything was inescapable, nothing could ever be his fault. The world would unfold according to its design. Spilt milk. No sense crying about it.

  


He could say nothing through dinner even if he’d known what to say, but it passed pleasantly nonetheless. They offered up ideas about what to do with Odin’s old office. The room had no windows. Loki proposed they turn it into a boulangerie, which they all agreed would be best, but ultimately deadly, as none of them had any willpower when faced with a fresh loaf of bread. Frigga suggested a movie room. Maybe with a projector. Thor mentioned a walk-in closet, since the master bedroom was on the first floor near the den and it didn’t have one--and his mother was a clothes horse. Frigga pointed out it could be both, since she’d be dressing in the morning while they’d be watching movies long after she was up. They ended up reminiscing about Thor’s preferred childhood “fort”: the space in the closet beneath Frigga’s dresses, which were organized by color. It meant that when Thor looked up from his little den, he saw a rainbow-hued silk ceiling. Thor did not mention that everything in the closet had smelled of his mother’s skin and perfume, but Loki had joined Thor in that fort often enough to know that that was the case--and that it was also half the draw.

  


After dinner, Frigga went out into the solarium with a blanket, her phone, and a glass of wine. She’d be in there for hours talking with Eir, so there was time. Thor headed to the family room and flopped down on the couch to watch _Pride and Prejudice_ . If Loki wasn’t careful, this would lead straight into _Anna Karenina_ , because Thor had A Thing for Keira Knightley that had begun with _Bend It Like Beckham_ and did not appear to be going anywhere in the near future.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Loki asked, when the credits came on.

Thor was still flushed and smiling. Being on the couch always made him warm and rosy, and watching favorite films made him moreso. He nodded and squinted at Loki’s face.

“You’ve got some…” Thor gestured at Loki’s mouth, then leaned over, pushed Loki’s lip up with the top of his finger, and scraped at Loki’s tooth with his nail. “... oregano or basil or something,” Thor continued, fussing, until the green speck was on his fingertip, which he then popped into his mouth.

Loki shouted.

“Oregano,” Thor decided, chewing it carefully between his front teeth. Loki’s face wrinkled up and he shook his head from side to side in a blur.

“You’re so gross,” Loki gasped, quaking against Thor’s shoulders.

“Mmhmm,” Thor agreed.

“Remember when we were little and you ate the last Rolo?” Loki asked.

Thor’s eyes went wide and he fell over onto his side on the sofa, laughing and hiding his face in his hands. Loki fell with him, landing with his head in the dip of his brother’s waist.

“I was all butthurt about it,” Loki continued. “And you came over and grabbed my face and pushed the chewed up candy into my mouth with your tongue. Like a fucking bird.”

“And you fucking ate it,” Thor cackled.

“I know,” Loki gasped, thrashing against the cushions and his brother. “The best part was that it was _your_ Halloween candy. I’d eaten all of mine, instantly, but you’d rationed yours somehow.”

“I think it was more like hoarding than rationing.”

“Only I was four and it was candy,” Loki said, clearing his throat and attempting calm speech, which lasted through three more words. “You’re sixteen and it was parsley, Thor, what the fuck?”

“Oregano,” Thor amended, and started vibrating again. “I think I might be feral.”

“Me too,” Loki sighed, and slumped over Thor’s hip.

“Is that ‘me too’ as in you also think I’m feral? Or ‘me too’ as in you’re feral as well?”

“Yes,” Loki smiled, and Thor hummed and gave an approving nod as they slowly came down from their giddiness.

 

It all struck Loki as boding well. Thor’s borderless childhood regard for their bodies was intact. And Thor’s wardrobe was a constant and welcome reminder of Thor’s indifference to other concepts of bounds. Loki thought of Thor’s pretty camisole, bought a month earlier in anticipation of spring. White, with tiny jewel-tone flowers on it and lace trim at the top. Nine days ago, the weather had finally been warm enough. Thor had worn it to school and kept it on at dinner. In doing so, he had given his father enough rope.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Odin had asked. “Go change into something more appropriate. And cut your hair, for god’s sake, you look ridiculous.”

Thor’s hair was as long as his mother’s. It had taken him three years to get it there.

“No,” Thor had replied.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“You spoiled brat. If you’re going to live in my house-”

 _“_ It’s _Mom’s_ house,” Thor had corrected calmly. “So I’ll do as she says.”

At that, Odin had slammed Thor’s head down against the table.

Five years of soccer in grade school had taught Thor to tuck in his chin and meet a hit with his forehead. The reflex spared his mouth and nose, but the plate broke and the place where it cracked cut his brow so that he bled onto what was left of his salad. Frigga had stood up so fast her chair tipped over after it was thrown back behind her. The table had jolted from the knock of her hips, making water slosh at the bottoms of half-empty glasses.

“Get out,” she had said, a whisper worse than any scream. Odin’s face had softened and widened with shock.

“I-”

“Now.”

When Odin still hadn’t risen, she’d darted behind him and pulled out his chair, with him still in it, so quickly and smoothly Loki had gasped.  

“If I have to say it again, it’ll be the last thing you ever hear from me,” she had warned.

 

The threat had been enough. After the front door had clicked shut behind Odin, Frigga herded Thor over to the sink to wash the blood and dinner from his face as she gently asked Loki to please get the ointment and bandages from the medicine cabinet.

 

It was Thor’s calm “no” That still hung in Loki’s ear. Unruffled, unafraid, and adamant. Easy grace in the face of ugliness. And almost eerie calm. Thor could make refusal beautiful, and that was the best Loki could ask of the worst.

 

“Sorry,” Thor said, softly laughing again. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. What did you want to talk about?”

“Ummm,” Loki said, craning his neck and aiming his ear, straining to hear their mother’s voice but unable to register anything above the rush of his own blood.

“Would you rather go upstairs?” Thor asked.

Loki nodded and they climbed to their feet, straightening shirts that had been set askew by the couch cushions and feeling the welcome cool of air against their backs. If nothing else, having this conversation upstairs in their rooms would spare them a retreat.

 

Thor let them into his own bedroom and briefly darted about, flipping on lights, flooding the space with a soft, rosy glow. The windows were still open from the warmth of the afternoon and the sheer white curtains that went from floor to ceiling were swaying gently, tracing the breeze and casting a brightening veil over the night outside. Thor closed all but one, which he left cracked. He had always preferred cold, fresh, moving air to stagnant warmth. When that was arranged, he plopped cross-legged onto his fluffy white bed and patted the space beside him. Loki joined him and sat fingering the ruffle at the edge of a sham while his eyes wandered around the room. The thick white carpet always dampened sound so well that Loki often didn’t realize his brother was listening to music until he opened the door. There’d be no danger of being overheard. Dusty pink pillows muffled more noise while looking safe and inviting. They were the color of dawn and the faithful breasts of doves. Pictures on the walls stopped words from echoing. Crisp gold frames and thick white mats surrounded the reverent studies of wildlife Thor had been doing since he was twelve. Mostly birds, with their bright colors, the males in cheerful yellows and crimsons with bold slashes of black.

 

Loki dropped back against the pillows with a bounce and then groaned.

“Just kill me,” he sighed.

“Then who’ll kill me?” Thor asked.

“Dad, probably,” Loki offered.

They both exploded with laughter, slowly calmed, then succumbed to a second wave of giggling upon reviewing what they had just found so funny.

“What’s up?” Thor asked, when they’d sobered. “Is it about Dad?”

“No.”

“Oh, thank god,” Thor said, and pulled a blanket over their bodies as he dropped down onto his side. “So what is it about then?”

Loki opened his mouth to speak but there were no words held within it, so he took a deep breath and cast his eyes around the room while he waited for the right phrase to alight on his tongue. A small painting hung on the wall above his head. A swallow in flight, upside down from this angle, seeming as if it would dart over their bodies where they lay on the bed. The birds did not tell the sky “I’m flying,” they simply spread their wings and leapt. So Loki rolled onto his right side and stretched his neck forward until his nose was nearly touching his brother’s.

 

Thor didn’t flinch or scoot backward. Didn’t furrow his brow or twist his mouth. He kept looking at Loki’s features with the same calm face, blemished only by the cut Odin put on his forehead. The motions of his eyes were slow and comfortable, unconcerned with being caught staring at his brother’s lips and eyelashes from inches away. When Loki nudged Thor’s nose with his own, Thor smiled and nudged him back. And when Loki shifted his head a hair to the right and leaned in closer, Thor kissed the corner of his mouth a split second before he kissed the corner of Thor’s. He could feel Thor’s warm fingers lightly brushing his knuckles where their hands were heaped together between their chests, bouncing over the rhythm of bones. He heard his own short breath whistle in through his nose when Thor kissed his cheek. Heard himself whimper when Thor centered their lips and kissed him on the mouth again. He saw Thor pause and stare, then watched his brother’s eyes lose focus, acquiring that distant, glazed look that meant their owner was looking inward, searching through remembered moments and words, weighing all their meanings. Renovating his reality. Re-evaluating past, present, and future. Gauging threats and hurdles. Double-checking all his sums.  

 

Then Thor’s eyes cleared and refocused, fixing Loki’s own, and he grinned. If Helen in her entirety had possessed even a tenth of what was in one of Thor’s smiles, a thousand ships would have been a cinch. Thor, taken as a whole, was worth the trouble of an entire world--and probably the sun to boot. Thankfully he had never been the subject of any oaths, and had a tendency not to ask for more than his share, if he asked for anything at all.

“Hang on,” Thor said, and got up to turn off the lights, then looked out the window and down to the left, peering at the solarium. “She’s still on the phone,” he said, flipping all the lights on again and hopping back into bed.  

 

Loki tipped onto his back and beamed up at the ceiling. His smile was dopey, but Thor didn’t mention it. Merely asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Loki nodded, then blinked rapidly as his head rolled weakly on his neck. “Just... dizzy,” he admitted, still grinning helplessly.

Thor nodded and straightened the edge of Loki’s t-shirt sleeve where it had folded up at the seam, then slipped his fingers under the fabric to stroke the thin skin on the inside of Loki’s arm.

“Is this like giving me the last Rolo?” Loki asked, turning his head toward his brother, training his gaze on Thor’s face to catch any flicker in his expression.

“What?”

“Are you just being nice?” Loki translated.

Thor laughed gently at this, then shook his head.

“No. Why? Am I being really patronizing or something?”

“No,” Loki said. “I just wouldn’t put it past you to be nice about this for the sake of niceness.”

“Well, thanks for overestimating me,” Thor said, laughing again. “But I think there might be limits. Here, hang on a sec.”

Thor slid off the bed and fished a notebook from the mess on his desk, then handed it to his brother. The ubiquitous Mead college ruled. Spiral-bound with a red cover. Gotten for ten cents at a back to school sale. Loki had always assumed it was for homework.

“You’re K,” Thor said, and curled up on the bed again to watch his brother read.

 

Loki was also himself in the journal. Everything was in Thor’s tiny, tidy, all-caps hand, a whisper that didn’t wish to be mistaken. Loki read from back to front. The recent entries were minimal and the latest was from yesterday.

_Still packing up Dad’s things. Feel guilty for feeling relieved. Seems like I should dislike it more. Loki’s sticking to his room. Would like to lie down, but when I stop moving the time passes too slowly._

 

The entries for the preceding week were much the same, though angrier earlier on. It seemed Odin had been calling and texting Thor constantly. Frigga had found Thor’s phone, turned off, on the coffee table, put two and two together, and told Odin he would hear from his sons at their discretion and in the meantime he was the leave them alone.

 

Before Odin’s explosion, the journal entries largely bounced back and forth between Loki and K.

 _Loki played_ Cigarettes After Sex _otw to school this am. Melody from “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” reminds me of_ Pretenders’ _“Back on the Chain Gang.” Have to check out more of their stuff._

_Weather’s getting good. Red-winged blackbirds are back._

_K happy today, I think. Smiling all the time. Affectionate. Playing with my hair and straightening my sweater. Responded in kind. More smiling--and amazing blushing._

 

A few days before that was a record of a shopping trip Loki vividly remembered, with the receipts folded up and taped in the margin and little sketches of the purchased clothes. Thor had tried on loose, lightweight cardigans that looked more like capes; billowing silky blouses with crocheted strips down the back where his skin showed through; thin, loose tees in soft colors with huge scoop necks that framed his throat and collar bones. Loki had waited, leaning against the wall out in the hallway of the fitting rooms, and had gone wide-eyed and answered “yes” every time Thor opened the door and asked “What about this one?”

_Saw a fireball over the Macy’s parking lot with Loki tonight. We thought it was a plane burning until we Googled it._

 

In the entry before that, Loki was fairly certain Thor was referring to an evening they spent watching _Broad City_ on the sofa.

_K’s head on my shoulder. Not sleeping, but maybe sleepy. Sides of our hands pressed together where they rested at the edges of our legs._

 

“Why _K_?” Loki asked.

“It’s a little less obvious than Loki, since your name’s already in there. And it’s an _English Patient_ reference,” he admitted softly.

“‘Am I K in your book? I think I must be,’” Loki quoted, and saw his brother’s cheeks lift with a smile and turn pink.

“You look a little like Kristin Scott Thomas,” Thor said, and Loki could only blush and duck his head, since it was true.

Thor took the notebook back and buried it beneath the mess of books and papers on his desk.

“Lights are out,” Thor said, looking out the window again, and Loki sighed and climbed out of the bed.

 

Downstairs, their mother was in the living room with another glass of wine and a novel. Rather than bother her by watching movies they opted to fill birdfeeders by flashlight in the backyard.

 

“Have you been all right?” Thor asked, straining slightly to unlatch the roof of the feeder and pry it open, fighting the rust left by winter. “I figured if you wanted to be bothered you wouldn’t be in your room, so I left you alone all week, but now I’m wondering if I fucked up.”

“No,” Loki said, shaking his head as he tore open the sack of sunflower seeds and filled the air with their oily scent. “You did fine. I was just… thinking... or fretting, I guess, I don’t know. I’ve wanted him out of here for years now but I never imagined it going down the way it did. Feels like I wished on a monkey’s paw.”

“Yeah,” Thor agreed, huffing a laugh. “I always figured he’d just stop coming up from the apartment downtown. Quit kidding himself. Have Mom visit him there.”

“Exactly. He could save himself the trouble of being disappointed in us every weekend.”

Thor started pouring food into the bin while Loki held the flashlight. They listened to the rainy, sizzling sound of the seeds hitting the metal walls of the hopper.

 

The leaves that had fallen late in autumn and been trapped under snow were all exposed now and damp with melt, scenting the spring evening with a different season. The odor of ice lingered in the earth, sending its hard perfume of stone up with every step the brothers took on their way back to the house. Rain was forecast for Thursday, along with warmer weather. With luck it would thaw the ground so that the worms could come up and feed the birds.

  


They went through their evening routine on autopilot, trading off on the shower and sink, staying out of each other’s way not so much to grant privacy as to avoid the little breaks in fluid motion that so swiftly shortened their fuses. The familiarity made it easy for Loki to imagine that the preceding hours of the evening had never happened. It made him anxious for some sign of change. When he stepped out of the shower, he was alone in the bathroom, which was normal, and which, in his life’s new light, suddenly felt foreign and unsteady. When he opened the bathroom door to dash naked down the hall, he hoped to find the hall bright with light coming from his brother’s bedroom. Instead he was met with the familiar glow of the nightlight that was forever plugged into the socket near the floor. But, when he got halfway down the hall, he discovered that, though it was dark within, the door to Thor’s room was open, which had never been the case before.  

“Going to bed?” Thor called softly.

Loki’s eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness after the bright white tile of the bathroom so he still couldn’t see his brother.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping cautiously through the door, long in the habit of walking carefully through dark rooms after years of leaving toys, clothes, books, and more on this bedroom floor.

Loki saw a shadow move in front of the lighter background of bedding. It gradually resolved into Thor, who, whether out of habit or some diehard sense of fairness, was as naked as Loki was and smelled of the same soaps and shampoos. Thor’s fingers found the side of Loki’s neck and his thumb fitted behind the back of Loki’s jaw. Thus oriented, Thor leaned in to press a long, dry kiss into the hollow of Loki’s left cheek. With those points of contact to provide bearings, Loki managed to set a matching kiss on his brother’s face.

“She’s driving his stuff downtown tomorrow,” Thor whispered.

“She’s okay with being alone with him?”

“She’s picking up Freyr on the way. Officially, to help unload the boxes.”

“Good,” Loki sighed, and felt Thor nodding against the side of his face before Thor kissed him again.

“G’night,” Thor said.

“Don’t let me sleep all day,” Loki whispered.

“Will you remember you said that if I wake you up tomorrow?”

“Nope,” Loki smiled, and kissed Thor goodnight again before heading off to bed.

  


When Loki woke, the sky was grey. Whether it was dawn with thin clouds or noon with thicker ones, Loki couldn’t say without cheating. It was the type of light photographers loved. Soft. Diffuse. It let you see more. Sunlight hid half the world in the shadows that it cast.

 

Loki suspected it was early. The robins were the only birds singing and they were usually the first to wake. Frigga had raised a nest of them years ago. Thor and Loki had been charged with digging holes and peeking under stones to find worms and grubs for them to eat. After the chicks’ eyes had opened and their feathers had come in, Loki was amazed to hear them sing. Songs they had known without ever being taught, written into their blood, like the code for green eyes or gold hair.

 

When Loki checked, his phone said seven-thirty. He stretched, arching off the bed, feeling the cool drag of the sheets against his front and loving the pull under his ribs that seemed to open up his lungs. He dropped with a groan and a rustle of cotton, then rolled off the mattress and tiptoed into the hall where he cocked his ear like a doe. Hearing nothing, he darted quickly into the bathroom.

 

Thor’s door had been open. Loki couldn’t remember if it had remained that way after they’d said their goodnights. But he didn’t want to stop and risk getting caught up in his brother while he had a full bladder, morning breath, and a bad case of bed-head. He did an unusually thorough brushing of his teeth and tongue. Carefully finger-combed his curls. Washed his face with cold water to try to bring down the puffiness that always plagued him for the first hour of the day. That being all he could do, he took a deep breath, listened for footsteps, and started back down the hall. This time he did stop at his brother’s door.

“You’re up early,” Thor said, not whispering or nervous. His voice was smooth enough that he had to have been up for at least half an hour. Loki stepped inside. The windows were all open again and the curtains were sometimes swaying, sometimes leaping up into the room on the wind. Thor had been looking at something on his phone but was setting it on his nightstand now and scooting to the far side of the bed. “She left half an hour ago. Freyr’s sending Snapchats and turning her into stickers.”

“Did you screenshot them?” Loki asked, climbing under the covers and settling in the warm spot left by his brother, humming at the way it made the cool breeze welcome.

“’Course,” Thor grinned.

“Send them to me later.”

“’Kay,” Thor nodded, and reached to fix the sheet over Loki’s shoulder where it had bunched up and folded under. “She said we could go wherever we wanted today as long as we texted to tell her first. But I figured we could just… stay in.”

“Mmm,” Loki nodded, smiling and sinking further into the pillows.

 

“You told me not to let you sleep all day,” Thor reminded, thirty minutes later, as he pushed Loki’s curls off his face and tried not to laugh at the puffy-eyed bewilderment he found there.

“I lied,” Loki croaked. “Let me sleep all year.”

Thor shoved the blankets down to their waists so that the chill in the air would wake them up a bit. Loki whined and pulled the covers back up to their necks again.

“Is this what you want to do today?” Thor asked, and Loki nodded.

Thor leaned over his brother and grabbed his phone to set an alarm for two hours--the soonest their mother could be home, though he knew it would be longer. Odin would find a way to keep her with him, though not as long as he would’ve managed if she’d gone alone. She’d probably go out for dinner with Freyr after they dropped off the van, which meant he and Loki might have all day.

 

Thor slid his phone under the pillow and then scooted toward his brother, who nudged and arranged him until Thor was on his back and he was tucked under Thor’s arm.

 

They both swore when the alarm woke them, then rushed off to dress, each of them putting on their softest clothes before reconvening in the kitchen. Thor slotted waffles into the toaster and threw them onto plates when they popped up, yelping at the way they scorched his fingers. After eating three rounds of those, the brothers dropped onto the living room sofa to resume their lazy Sunday of shared warmth and sleeping.

 

By noon their minds were awake. Thor texted their uncle to see if he could give them some sense of what to expect from the rest of their day. He asked whether they should wait for lunch (or dinner) so that they could all eat together. Freyr said to eat both without them because he and Frigga had plans. A Snapchat photo with a Manhattan filter told them that their uncle wasn’t trying to trick them into any trouble. Thor and Loki registered a faint twinge of guilt--or perhaps rationalized one--about how pleased they were to have all their family out of the way, but, after ten very long days, they felt entitled.

 

Out the window they could see the bird feeder, a constant stream of sparrows, cardinals, and chickadees attending it. Those were the birds that stayed year round and spent winter living on things that Loki hadn’t seen. The migratory birds dodged the food scarcity and harsh weather by helping themselves to a second summer farther south. Loki supposed it must help to be so small. At that size, one could probably get away with anything. Pick time from god’s pocket. Rewrite the seasons. Or perhaps the birds were gods. Winged and singing, with eyes that missed nothing.

“Isn’t there a finch feeder in the garage?” Loki asked.

“Yeah. And a birdbath that weighs as much as we do. Wanna put them out?”

“Yeah,” Loki yawned, squirming and stretching against Thor’s side before climbing to his feet and heading to the hall to put his shoes on.

 

“We could do some of our homework during lunch,” Loki said, as he and Thor shuffled across the yard, each holding one side of the bowl of the cement birdbath.

“Yeah,” Thor agreed, centering the notch over the peg on the base as they lowered the bath. “And the rest after Mom gets home.”

Loki smiled and nodded, pleased to discover that his brother was hell-bent on stealing time too.

 

When they’d finished their work for the birds they went back to the sofa and resumed their cuddle. Loki cautiously worked his hand up Thor’s shirt, shyly sticking to Thor’s flank at first, seeing Thor smile and hearing him hum, feeling encouraged by the brush of Thor’s thumb across the back of his arm. The skin of Thor’s stomach was softer than Loki was expecting. He ran his hand around it in a small circle, loving the way the flesh shifted with his palm and made a dry whispering sound. When Loki’s hand went higher, Thor’s ribs leapt a bit. Loki heard his brother’s breath rush in as his chest rose up. Loki’s fingers came to rest in the hollow above the solar plexus, where the body fluttered in a way that made it seem as if a bird was madly beating its wings below the skin.

  


Their mother didn’t frown or Look at them oddly when she came home that evening. Didn’t suspect the kisses exchanged in the darkness of Thor’s doorway every night. Missed the hours the brothers spent curled together in Loki’s bed on weekday afternoons before she got home from work. They were like the larvae hidden in tree bark that the woodpeckers lived on in January: things you’d never see if you didn’t know to look for them.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost


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